The Passage

25“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.26For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

(John 5:25–29)

The Notes

The Law given by Moses in the Old Testament required that all work should cease by sundown on Friday. To uphold this requirement, religious leaders in Israel followed strict guidelines that regulated what could and could not be done on Saturdays.

While in Jerusalem, celebrating one of the Hebrew holidays prescribed in the Old Testament, Jesus healed a disabled man on the Sabbath. When the religious leaders complained, Jesus responded, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (Jn 5:17).

In this discourse, Jesus explained how He can exercise authority over the Sabbath.

The Terms

“dead” [nekros]: (1) pertaining to being in a state of loss of life; (2) pertaining to being so morally or spiritually deficient as to be in effect dead; (3) pertaining to having never been alive and lacking capacity for life.

William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer,A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 667.

“hear” [akouō]: (1) literally, to have or exercise the faculty of hearing; (2) legal, to hear a legal case, grant a hearing; (3) to receive news or information about something, learn about; (4) to give careful attention to, listen to, heed; (5) to pay attention to by listening; (6) to be given a nickname or other identifying label, be called; (7) to hear and understand a message.

William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer,A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 37–38.

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“Jesus-Actual” exists to use social media and the Internet to help followers of Jesus Christ hear the actual words of their Savior from the Bible without commentary and with minimal editorial distractions.